Diplomatic proceedings have moved forward with an Alnae warlord known as General Preskian, an elf of course. They hold mostly what is the former state of Iothaes. I’d describe them as the least evil at least, also struggling the most.
Laesaaria and Shetou are not really the type to tell us if they actually do need anything. Though we do know drow are always in a state of violent acquisition, the famine definitely took a toll on their population but they barely seem to notice the difference in day to day affairs. Cannibal elves in Alnae are a whole thing that makes everyone worried, drow murdering each other for scraps is sort of a regular day. So its harder to tell what they would need and they aren’t inclined to tell us due to that whole ‘we’re better than everyone’ thing they have going on sometimes. Might need to infiltrate them just to figure out what their issues even are.
As requested we’ve made contact with Valen. She proves to be a bit of a haggler. While we know the standard pay rate she points out that she has her own team to keep operating as well as equipment. So she’s questioning if we supply the equipment or the funding to buy equipment and whether or not that’s included in the initial paycheck as well as various potential benefits packages. That and she pointed out that if we are trying to establish an exclusivity contract with her she wants a series of land plots in the area of Zenaka we hold alongside a house in Moncayo. Then stated if we wanted her to formally join VSEC, she refuses to wear an outfit or do any other manner of behaviors associated with our military. Normally I wouldn’t mention all this but as Renjala often said, if you don’t hire them you’ll be fighting them. I think she is weighing contracts against one another given all the effort she’s been going through to make a name for herself among solian powers. I do know from background checks that she does have a tendency to make some…vulgar statements towards the VSEC occupation of Zenaka. Though she does the same towards almost everyone. Do with that what you will.
As for other diplomatic ventures, who is Masa? That and define ‘not psycho’ because Haleh is a raider turned pirate working for Rahlken right now.
Thunderstrike-4’s originally came from Alnae, actually one of the warlords has the old facility though its not in production at the moment. If we were to place a large order and maybe help with supplying it they could be inclined to get it up and running again.
The knights went to the new arcane moon and set up as requested while the fleet is headed towards Auwana. Though not long afterwards we detected an unknown fleet moving towards Zenaka. Allison from Tyne’s division reported that there have been odd movements across Thenica. Worth remembering we have a permanent portal between it and Moncayo. The rift to the Warrens is closed and the Areti is bombarding the knights at the new moon. Also it turns out that Decaelys and her cult are not with the Areti, and also since they are small and person sized we didn’t really pick up anything on the scanners. Technically we should have if they had the mass of mana that creates a jesai ship, but Decaelys is can apparently build her ship right on top of Enohas by using the radiation from the arcane moon itself. The nearby station of Renjala’s construction was crippled during her arrival.
Speaking of Paizarus, the sweep for Solvang ships actually hasn’t turned up anything. They seem to have been content to just leave once they picked up Asmodan. Though that might be what is approaching Zenaka.
Meanwhile the latest report from Diadem is that they have retreated most of their forces back onto the fleet after significant losses. They have managed to re-establish contact with Eleazor and Gunhild but cannot figure out how to get them out of the ring. It’s so colossal that the ever-shifting mechanisms with in it are like watching continents rearrange themselves. Eleazor says that he and Gunhild are alright but very lost, and have abandoned searching for any sort of control room. They’re doing alright on food by eating the strangest stuff they keep finding, it turns out within the ring is somewhat overgrown due to the constant flipping of the external plates depositing organic material inside. Given how old Diadem is, native life forms have evolved. The fleet is on standby to extract Eleazor and Gunhild if they get pushed out into the surface layers at any point but for now they are stranded inside of a living hostile super-station. Eleazor said support would be nice.
As an update, Kaylen’s back from Thenica after hunting down another Phantom colony and burning it down if you still wanted her to go talk to some people for…well Lancaster technically but you’re the one that is here right now.
We might want to hold off on repopulating Jamalia. VSEC just left to stop Faelyn again but Decaelys wasn’t with her. The ol’ distraction strategy. I’m not sure what will be left of Enohas if its moon just disappears. Also now that Decaelys is there, we can’t create a rift in or out of the area since she can either ward it or learn it.
Meanwhile in the demon kingdom. Our four candidates have been sent into the chaos though it is likely both Phantom and Vloz’Khress influences are there as well. Not to mention just rogue demons looking for a shot. The first major issue is that the Vloz sent Aikane, partially to investigate Jvangard’s death as well as guide any potential new candidates while making sure no one else gets a foothold besides those aligned with Vloz interests. Ecsanul and some other larger demons are there as well. Aikane is also trying to maintain the area to prevent it from turning into another bandit kingdom. This is at odds with what a few others are up to but seeing as Vloz ruled the area they’ve had an easier time getting things under control. At the same time, what we theorize to be one of Asmodan’s people are also there looking to destabilize it instead. Our candidates have been preying on stragglers as they can but by comparison Aikane took out several other greater demons already for ‘disturbing the peace’.
All this is to say that our four candidates are able to make some progress with our help on becoming greater demons but its a struggle. A chaotic demon territory is fairly violent and most of our knights were recalled awhile ago when we learned they were likely being watched. Now there is a shapeshifting demon lord patrolling the area and if she finds out we’re there our candidates won’t make it out.
So either they can go into the deeper parts of the territory for better use of their time while contending with other big demons who don’t need the promise of some outside force to do the exact same thing, or stay on the outskirts until someone mellows out the territory but will still be a ways off of being ready to push for demon lord. With the exception of Aryn’s candidate…they’re doing fine. Though they might not be entirely trustworthy.
Also to note, back in Valadeus’ territory Ki’Ralcht has taken over the largest share of his assets. While she is an abyssal and not really a candidate for a demon lord, I don’t think the Phantoms are planning on that. She just happens to know the most about his holdings and has the ability to keep them under control while Asmodan does whatever nefarious scheme he’s up to.
We’ve begun construction on the Iron Cradle for a portal and also sent it through to Diadem as requested.
They’re called acolytes until you win the challenge. Ritualists, cultists, and followers are the yoga moms in the circle. The acolytes actually fight though still have a way to go. Inquisitors would be people at Cassir’s rank. All of them follow the other potential cult leader who is ready to slap your shit. They just killed the other girls who were once associated with your old body and their speech was something to do with ‘oh look who isn’t here where the rest of us are’ and now they’re the leader of the Roha branch by default due to a lack of candidates. She’s an inquisitor, and all the other inquisitors work for her. She goes by Lord Inquisitor Alexandrea. She turned all her ritualists into acolytes. So you know she has also been by the ichor lake to talk with me. It was just a ‘getting to know each other’ conversation though I can tell she’s taking steps to position herself favorably with me. I’m going to be honest too, it’s kind of working. She brought me cookies. Remember how Cassir’s problem was a lack of direction or ambition so she just kind of did whatever we asked? Alexandrea has the opposite problem. The longer you’re at Jydoq the more they’re probably going to take over Roha. I’d stop them buuut…well you see I had my head cut off and the doctor said I should just take it easy for a bit.
Aryn says she’s not technically cheating but she’s curious if it sounds racist to point out she’s a daiheb cyborg. So she’s a bit more capable at this kind of thing.
Suicidal people aren’t exactly lining up to be science experiments.
Calm down, Song Yi is clearly going to kill Renjala first so you can use that as a warning that she’s coming.
We could send the Yelay to the Iron Cradle. Charlotte seems to want to make a new vivarium.
Scout ships are on the way to see what exactly Kaisa is throwing us at.
The FTL trap would need a ritual with about as much mana as a cruiser can produce with its reactors per hundred kilometers. For comparison…Decaelys did one that would take all of Lancaster’s fleet to recreate. Space god and all.
Mana bomb? I assume you’re talking about the burst spell that Vasia was working on. In which case…sketchy. Kind of. See it keeps killing people who try to use it for kind of meh effect all things considered. Making progress though.
As for assessing Asmodan’s fleet, that might be a job for Nah or at least Allison. I have no way to check on it.
I understood none of that archmage talk. I just know Laesaaria and Yasrena are famously some of the best. At least until we discovered Sakhessa. I thought archmages just got their degree then went to work for some company? Also what do you mean despite how I treat you? I knit you sweaters all the time, well I used to buy them but Craylin has been working on arts and crafts with me. So the last few were mine.
The university syllabus is still being worked on, we got a year before its a good time to start a school year anyways.
As for power hungry, yes. Everyone always has a rationale for it but that doesn’t change that they covet power. Thus making them power hungry. Even if that power would let you save the world you still have to do certain things to get that power. There is a reason they say power corrupts. You simply cannot acquire that power purely through good deeds and happy thoughts. Even when your goal is to do good, you must do what must be done to gain the power to do so. Such is the cycle of the corrupting effects of power. For example, do you want to keep control of the cult and Roha? To do so you must kill the most promising of Cassir’s apprentices who has the most vision for the cult. You keep the power, but you kill their last vestiges of hope that Cassir once gave them.
Can you even kill them? Unlike you they’re combat ready, as brutal and savage as Cassir was. What would you need to do to kill them and keep your power if you can’t defeat them as you are? If you desire the power to defeat them, perhaps you will once again do something…questionable.
Though if you don’t…well this Lord Inquisitor seems like a bit of a monster in her own right. She too has done what must be done to take power of the cult. Meanwhile, I just dress up my cat and hang out by the lake. I’ve done nothing too terrible, so I am relegated to being just a glorified secretary to my own synapse. If I wanted, I could control you and take over everything you have…but that might be a little amoral.
Kennae says that the skills of a good leader and surviving an assassination aren’t that different. Something something old lizard wisdom. Basically he believes everyone should think like a zankist and they have their own cult thing going on about how ‘everything is zankou’ so instead a leader should learn a series of useful skills like patience, observation, and so on. Also he hasn’t seen Kaylen in a long time.
I suppose as a briefing if you really intend to go to Beldobaan territory, you should know that they’re much quieter than most drow. They thrive on obscurity to an extreme, this might actually make it very difficult to get any information out of them. They do not divulge personal information easily. The Matriarch has not been seen since the invasion, and before those it had been about twenty years. She only appears to consult the masses during times of major events. Beldobaan is a very old house who have previously utilized their neutrality to keep their heads low while working primarily on civil infrastructure. They’re actually one of the less aggressive houses in Shetou in theory. Though we have reason to believe their assassins are second to none, and you just don’t hear about it when they do make a move. Though that is all only true of their deep territories, ones ruled very directly by the house. It is large enough to possess several other locations under its rule, and these places tend to be a little bit wild. Since Beldobaan doesn’t get involved unless absolutely necessary, Kylia for example is a lawless pirate paradise full of people so rebellious they can’t even speak common correctly. It’s where Allison is from.
However, their outliers are probably not what you’re after, so I’ll keep to the core of the Great House. We know it receives tribute from several of its minor houses but even they don’t know what all that money necessarily goes to. It just sometimes comes back for civil infrastructure unannounced. To be honest, to get close to the Vals of Beldobaan you might have to marry into them and even then it’ll be difficult due to their reclusive nature.
The pirate monitoring Allison has been working on suggests a few things. First that Asmodan’s fleet is being built up in the demon kingdom. Second that his new flagship is actually under construction right now at Riftgard back in Auwana.
Ha ha! We’re off on our first federation gig. Apparently our mission, should we choose to accept it, is…conquer a ringwor-holy shit thats a big space station. Full of robot monsters. According to my data, humanoids find other humanoids with pets to be more trustworthy. Clearly we must tame these monsters and put them in every pet store on the cradle!
That and there is the legitimate issue that this place is crazy. Millions of years left to soak up power from the sun and prepare for a journey beyond the galaxy that never happened. We’ve only just gotten clearance to begin mass production for warforged of the more violent models. We will need to place our resources carefully on this one and dispatch our forces intelligently to minimize losses until we have more to work with. Arsene is back at VSEC offices in a big armchair. Great start.
To survey the situation, it’s a ringworld. A ring large enough to encompass a star, its a small star but its a star none the less. One of Lancaster’s cronies got the keys to this sweet ride and upon attempting to move in they discovered that its overrun by robot monsters that are really kind of like us but less sapient and more stupid. The ring itself can shift into different configurations, apparently that was their solution to it being permanently exposed to a star. That’s what they came up with instead of umbrellas. Also that makes the interior an impossible to navigate labyrinth but at the end of that maze is the control room we need to plug the keys into. Without doing so, it is difficult to establish a permanent portal here.
Judging by the sheer size of this place, this might be a multi generational project to get full control of the ring even if we get access to the controls. Let alone to populate it. Right now some of Lancaster’s fleet is standing by but the guy with the keys specifically is trapped within the ring’s labyrinth and can’t get out. Since he has the keys, it would be ideal to find his body at the minimum.
So far the roaming robots are equipped with cannons, missiles, machine guns
As for more ship style warforged uhhh…sure I can try. One turned into a benevolent omniscience with a holier than thou complex and the other is now a depressed vsec secretary so roll the dice and lets see what we get! Oooonce I get ahold of a big enough ship. It has to be awesome.
As for expanding our potential populace we have some stroke of luck there. Right now due to the famine and all the other issues, people are generally happier to emigrate than usual. Bonus, living with a bunch of killer robots doesn’t seem so bad when your other options are a bunch of werewolves, a giant black puddle that spits out alien monsters, and *shudders* Moncayo. So we’re not terribly unappealing and this was a space station used for warforged production by humanoids so we could theoretically restore the life support to the ship interior. All those weird things we built on the outside of the ship maybe not so much. However, food production might be an issue.